Yes, Art, I'm also quite astronished by the lack of memory in the US, even from events of 30 years ago. It's disturbing because it could be that any nation placed under the same historical circumstances could behave the same way. There's something we regularly hear, over here, which is our "duty of memory". It should exist all over the world.

The prime directive (I've read "ST Enterprise" has turned into concepts like WMDs, pre-emption, terrorism and away from what Roddenberry imagined; strangely, no videos of Enterprise are available here, since last year) is directly based from the principle of Non-interference in internal matters of Sovereign States. This concept has been known since nations exist (Westphalia Treaty 1648).
That concept helped in the creation of the USA (How can a country exist without it being recognized as such by the other countries?).

I'm convinced the sovereignity of a state is a concept so strongly rooted all over the world, and for such a long time, that what goes on now in the US won't succeed (unless the Iraqis accept it quickly) and all the new pre-emption , unilateralist doctrines won't last very long.

If Bush gets re-elected, we'll remember that neither for Reagan, nor for Nixon, nor for Clinton were their second term as productive as their first. Bush will have to face increasing costs for Iraq, an increasing number of deaths and wounded while the troops are kept there and no forgiveness from a much larger press. Another thing, and that's irony: oil cost increasing not because of politics but because of the expanding China.

Raoul

Raoul